job hunting

For about a month now, Adie and I have been looking for new jobs. She's been miserable as an administrative assistant and I've been upset ever since my salary review where I only received a 3% raise (which basically means that I got a cost-of-living raise that's mandated by law, yawn!).

Both of our employers are reluctant to give any decent raises to any of their employees due to tight budget constraints. However, our decision to start our job search wasn't just based on salary. Adie has been working hard but her employers have asked her to take more than she could chew. She's basically doing two people's jobs. What really ticked her off was that, even though they gave her a lateral promotion as a referral coordinator, they have not found anyone to replace her current position, so Adie's been working as an AA since the news that she got the job as a referral coordinator. She was going to literally quit her job if she didn't get the lateral move but nothing has changed since her employers have been extremely slow in finding a replacement.

I on the other hand, am very happy with my job. I'm not making much money (in fact, Adie's the breadwinner right now) but I am learning a lot. My new boss has given me lots of opportunities, which will no doubt help me boost my skills and experience in the world of fundraising. Also, the people I work with are great. It's like working with your friends. Most of my co-workers are in their 20s and we do not have a strict dress code. If anything, we have creative days (i.e. Tie Tuesdays). But after my salary review, where I received little to no raise, I've decided that I needed to start looking. I've been here long enough to know what our budget looks like and I just don't see that I'm going to receive any more than what they gave me in the first place. Plus, with only three people in my department, there's no place for me to go but away from here. They could technically create a position for me and hire someone else to replace my position, but as most of us here know, the Man is tough to work with. He's by far, one of the toughest person I have ever worked for in my entire life. I've never met anyone this strange. I love my boss, but his boss is the person that none of us likes to deal with. In fact, I just can't imagine myself working here for another year working for him.

Adie and I have placed our resumes in various websites like Monster and CareerBuilder. She's been actively searching through Craig's List whereas I've been sending out resumes through Idealist. Adie doesn't care to work for a nonprofit organization but I do. It's what I've set out to do and I'm going to keep doing this unless an amazing opportunity comes up (ex. a six-figure salary corporate job).

It took me about three months to find this job, so we'll see how long this one takes. I always remembered that phrase, you take your first job and you choose your second job. So, I am going to be very patient this time. I've got two interviews this week and next week so we'll see what happens.